Posted 15 February 2012 - 08:18 PM
I seem to be in a minority here, but I have shown no side effects to any of the jabs. People talked of number 2 hurting quite a lot; I have dealt with no pain, no weakness, no numbness... Nothing. Luck me I guess...
In response to an earlier comment; there was talk at a recent Weekend 1 that I stood in on regarding some student officers that'd been kicked off of an intake due to their behaviour. It's a minority though, I must say.
Officer Safety Training Weekend 2
I've rolled the two days into the one "bulletin," as really we covered a lot of old ground and learnt little that was new. We spent much of the first morning refining our Handcuffing techniques, before moving through Baton work, strikes, takedowns and everything mentioned in weekend one. The "horror," is that Saturday afternoon brings about your practical assessment. This will cover most, but not all, of what you were taught, and be prepared for little curve-balls. They won't ask you anything that wasn't taught, but make sure that if you only pay half attention to weekend one that you really work your backside off on the morning of Saturday two. You'll be assessed individually on the handcuffing techniques, pressure points and strikes, and assessed as a group for your baton work.
Don't be too worried; if you don't quite meet the expected standard on the afternoon here, then you'll be provided with another opportunity on the Sunday morning, alongside an opportunity to practise what you weren't sure on. All I will suggest is that you think before you do, and remember the basic rules of handcuffing. If you've paid close attention at weekend one, then you'll have no problems whatsoever. That's pretty much it for day One, with the exception of a few minutes exposure to your DPV, and you'll be checked over to make sure yours fits.
Day two is theory exam time. And yes, I'm serious (this time). 61 questions of terror in 6 sections. In one of these sections you must score 100%, or you'll be retaking that section. However, you have an hour to do it in. Most people in our class finished after about 40 minutes, so no real problems with time. After that, you'll get together to finalise the practial assessment pieces that weren't up to standard from the day before. This should take you to around midday, at which point it may be lunch time. After lunch, you have a more in depth exposure to searching; your search from prone is mentioned as part of your handcuffing assessment, but here you'll be taught how to properly search people from the prone position. I felt a little guilty towards one lad on my intake that works for Reliance as a Jailor. I had a knuckle duster planted on me, which, surprisingly, the lad failed to find. It was then replanted, and despite his determination to find it, sitll failed! In his defence, it did move from where it was secreted to an area that he'd already searched, and without my doing...
Later in the afternoon, you'll be introduced to the concept of SPEAR. No, you're not jabbing each other, with weapons or otherwise. I won't say too much as it'll spoil the surprise, but be prepared for a pretty strange sounding presentation with some interesting videos. After that, you'll take to the mats again and put what you've observed into some action. It's quite good fun really, and you'll be taken through it at a reasonable pace. There's a lot of talk of the instructors dressing up in FIST suits (no, not a sexual fantasy...), but we had no experience of this. I have definately seen other intakes doing OST with an instructor in a suit, but I've no idea what they were doing!
I think that's it, but I stand to be corrected by my fellow intake mates. The pace of this weekend was rather quick, so I do apologise if anything was overlooked! Look forward to this weekend for some more Law trickery, before our final weekend on the 2nd of March, and attestation on the 4th. For those of you wondering, the Special Chief Constable really does not joke when he says that the 16 weeks of training flies by. I can still vividly remember Weekend One Day One as though it were yesterday, and that was nearly 4 months ago!
Shame about your shoulder though Wes, hope it's soon back to normal! Was the theory exam okay at the end?
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